Sunday, January 20, 2008

Prestige or practicality? Rank in COD4

I've reached the top rank in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is 5-star general. To get any further rank I'd have to opt for "Prestige mode." That's where you reset your rank to zero, giving up all the weapons, accessories, perks and gun camo patterns you've unlocked.

I'm a role-playing gamer at heart, and one of my favorite things in RPGs is collecting weapons and armor and various treasure. That's why I like this collecting aspect of COD4. I like winning all the guns and stuff. The rank is almost incidental, a windfall for unlocking the guns. That's why I just don't see the point in me doing the Prestige mode.

That's not to say I don't understand Prestige mode. The fancy rank icon does suggest a certain amount of skill. My friend Fartknockker has "flipped" Prestige mode at least twice, and he's very skilled. But it took me forever to unlock all the stuff, and I still haven't unlocked the blue tiger and red tiger camo patterns for some of my favorite weapons.

Moreover, as one of my online friends pointed out during a match one night, "Sythbane is OLD, dude!" Indeed, I'm old enough to not be concerned with how much prestige I have in the eyes of a stranger. The guys I play regularly with know about how good I am relative to their skill level. For all the rest, I'd just as soon they don't know how good (or not good) I am. I don't feel the urge to impress anyone with the colorful prestige badge, although I salute my buddies who've earned it.

I'd be happier if "Prestige" mode consisted of more accessories and camo patterns for the weapons. I don't even like that red stripe pattern, but I want it because it's the highest one. That's prestige aplenty for me.

I got a little weary of COD4 the other night and popped in Rainbow Six: Vegas, which I haven't played in months. I'm afraid COD4 has ruined Vegas for me. I felt like my feet were bogged down in peanut butter, and everything was in one of those slow-motion nightmares. Vegas just moves too slowly. I hope Vegas 2 is speeded up, or it sure is going to be frustrating.

3 comments:

Fartknockker
said...

I have heard different views concerning whether or not to "Prestige". I am currently on my 6th time through and the fancy symbol does not necessarily mean that I'm better than you, it just means I've played more. The main reason I "flip" is the simple fact that the experience points that you earn after going through level 55 go nowhere. All you can do after that is complete the remainder of your challenges and I will do that when I have "flipped" 10 times. This is my preference and I do not have a problem with anyone who does not "Prestige". Those 3 frag grenades are hard to give up as a perk. On the subject of Vegas 2, if it is as slow as Vegas 1, I will predict that everybody will play it for about a month and then go back to COD4 especially if there are new maps for COD4. I probably sound bias but I have been playing video games for about 22 years and COD4 is simply the best single or multiplayer games I have ever played. Just the opinion of the Fartknockker.

That's a good point about flipping 10 times. That had not occurred to me. Does the ranking up seem to go much more quickly on the second or third time around? Getting all the head shots to unlock the camo patterns on the less-accurate weapons is taking me two forevers. ... I agree about Vegas 2. I only wish that COD4 had Vegas' persistent, customizable character feature.

It does go faster on consecutive flips because you learn the maps better each time as well as enemy movement as far as where they are most likely to be on the map and that equals more kills. I get 150 kills with a weapon and move on to 150 kills with the next one and don't worry about the headshots and then concentrate on non-weapon based challenges later in humiliation, killer and elite. Search and destroy above level 40 and after you have ranked your weapons can net you some big points also. I would like to have seen a persistent character creation as well as two attachments to one weapon,though it still is fun without it.